Ball diff is a worthy upgrade. You wouldn't want the universal swingshafts tho, but the ones that are more like a cvd axle, if you were gonna upgrade from the stock dog bone set up, which there's really no need as they work fine.

Not really. I find the gear diff much better for a RWD car because it will not slip no matter how loose. Some higher end cars such as the ABC Goose come with a gear diff standard.

But it will diff out all the same, Ball differentials have always been considered an upgrade in RWD vehicles. Properly adjusted ball diffs don't slip under power...

Given enough power and grip they will.

A gear diff will not "diff out" provided you have the car set up properly and have decent tires. Sure, the same might be achieved with a ball diff, but the sweet spot is a lot more difficult to find. For ease of maintenance and reliability, the gear diff wins.

I assumed we were talking about using it in a mini, most of which are powered by silver can motors, which hardly put down the power to do that. I would also say that the stock gear diff (and gearbox) likely would not hold up to that kind of power either

I will give it to you that a true viscous diff may offer some advantage over a ball different I will go aghead and stand by what I said that a ball differential is an upgrade over the standard gear differential that comes with the kit.

__________________
If it smells burnt up.. it's more than likely hot.. you don't have to touch it..

I have an M06 kit, unwrapped , waiting to be built. I have a few ???? cause some of the stuff I've seen posted and on built cars just doesn't compute.

1. Why are cvd's such a huge advantage over the stock dog bones?? The angle changes are so minimal can't seem to understand why they are such a neccessity.

2. Why are universals so bad in the M06 when they are chosen over the cvd on the front drivers by many of the better Mini racers????

3. What advantage is there to the aluminum rear end bits??? It looks like the aluminum parts (motor mount and the part on the other side) would be heavier than the stock parts. Do you want to add extra weight back there?? It seems to me that it would increase the polar moment of inertia which doesn't seem like a good idea???

4. Why do I see so many low profile servos with all the asssociated aluminum parts. Does it give you enough of an advantage in performance to justify the added expense and the awkwardness in changing batteries???

My apologies, but I hate spending money on Bling. If there are any Bling parts on one of my cars, it came in the kit.

It's not hard to remove the battery from the car using a low profile servo. The Savox servo I have only cost $60 CDN.

The rear motor plates do work as a heat sink. The motor dose run hot sometimes. Adding a fan is wise.

Universal's are bullet proof.

Some people like spending money on there toy cars. The rear uprights are worth the money. Other than that it's a personal choice.

Greg G

Greg, thanx for the response, but the questions may have been poorly worded. What I was asking was this:

1.WHY are universals and cvd's so much better than the dog bones in a RWD configuration??? And, if so, WHY are so many advocating cvds and telling people to not use the universals??

2. I believe the aluminum parts are heavier. The question then is will the additional weight adversely affect the handling???

3. Do low profile servos give you a performance advantage? And WHY

Like I said, not into bling. The option part has have a performance advantage to find it's way onto my cars. Must be nice to have a lot of extra $$$ but I'd rather spend it on the best servos and a really good esc. I've seen guys load up their cars with $100 or sometimes a lot more then use a cheap servo and esc. For me, it just doesn't make sense.

Could be wrong here, but the motor plates don't give nearly the motor cooling an $8 fan will.

Greg, thanx for the response, but the questions may have been poorly worded. What I was asking was this:

1.WHY are universals and cvd's so much better than the dog bones in a RWD configuration??? And, if so, WHY are so many advocating cvds and telling people to not use the universals??

2. I believe the aluminum parts are heavier. The question then is will the additional weight adversely affect the handling???

3. Do low profile servos give you a performance advantage? And WHY

Like I said, not into bling. The option part has have a performance advantage to find it's way onto my cars. Must be nice to have a lot of extra $$$ but I'd rather spend it on the best servos and a really good esc. I've seen guys load up their cars with $100 or sometimes a lot more then use a cheap servo and esc. For me, it just doesn't make sense.

Could be wrong here, but the motor plates don't give nearly the motor cooling an $8 fan will.

you have more slop with the dog bone and if you hit something and broke the dog come out...

Greg, thanx for the response, but the questions may have been poorly worded. What I was asking was this:

1.WHY are universals and cvd's so much better than the dog bones in a RWD configuration??? And, if so, WHY are so many advocating cvds and telling people to not use the universals??

2. I believe the aluminum parts are heavier. The question then is will the additional weight adversely affect the handling???

3. Do low profile servos give you a performance advantage? And WHY

Like I said, not into bling. The option part has have a performance advantage to find it's way onto my cars. Must be nice to have a lot of extra $$$ but I'd rather spend it on the best servos and a really good esc. I've seen guys load up their cars with $100 or sometimes a lot more then use a cheap servo and esc. For me, it just doesn't make sense.

Could be wrong here, but the motor plates don't give nearly the motor cooling an $8 fan will.

1. In RWD, given the limited suspension travel, you are right - there is likely NO performance upgrade going with CVD's over dogbones.

2. We had 3 top drivers running very quick M06's running this past weekend at our track, all within a tenth of each other for fast lap. Two were running the rear aluminum motor mount, one not. Based on that, there was apparently an insignificant difference in lap times attributed to the extra weight on the rear end. All three had fans. The fan is a necessity, as without it I was running ~200°F at the end of 8 minutes.

3. I installed a low profile servo using the stock plastic mounting hardware with no issues. I used a Futaba 9551, only because I had several lying around. The low profile mount does drop the CG slightly, but the servo is mounted low in the chassis so probably not any real difference here.

Biggest piece of information from our session was that the M06 can be made to work with several different combinations of Tamiya 60D tires. (Note: our carpet track is not Ozite, and for the FWD's the best combos have been S grips on all corners) Of the three cars mentioned above, one was running S grips on the rear, M grips on the front, another was S grips and regular kit tires, and mine was running type A's on the rear with type B's on the front (with 3/4 to full sauce on the fronts at the start of the night, tapering to inside 1/4 by the mains - full sauce rears as usual). I was running the stock spring setup - red front, yellow rear. 4.5mm ride height. Car was planted and perfectly balanced - 1300g with a thunderpower 3200 lipo.

Edit: I have seen several issues with the front axles being pulled out of the plastic steering knuckles during impacts - without breaking the knuckle. I swapped to the M05 alloy parts for security.

@hprt: Based on your stock spring setup and the ride height:
Did you shorten the dampers by inside spacers to achieve the ride height?
Or just not preload the springs as in the kit setup?
And what piston / oil did you use, Kit dampers or TRF?
A lot of questions, but could help me here in Germany...

@ Granpa: I also see not the necessarity for Aluminum uprights rear or Motor plates, because of the weight. Adding a fan is cheaper, as the bling parts are quite expensive here.
I also kept the dog bones, but nearly lost them 2 times during 2 accidents.
They blocked in the axles trying to fall out. Reason was I did not refer to manual of the kit, which recommends to use the red foam inserts instead of the O-rings in the outdrives... (limits side to side travel).

If I will get week in future and add an alu plate for the motor, then for sure only the motor mount side, as the second one is only for symmetry and bling.

At these could rainy days here in Germany I had time to establish a cold weather setup, that is quite driveable on rough wet and dusty tarmac: Kit spring setup, cva kit dampers with just one O ring and teflon bush instead of the second (from TRF dampers) with TRF pistons (3 front, 2 rear) and 200 Tamiya oil due to cold temperatures of 1 ° Celsius. -1° camber all around on 60D Type-A slicks f/r. Ta 03 ball diff, rather loose.

Thanx for the responses. Was planning to start the build on the M06 soon and was putting together a list of parts needed. Seems like the only useful upgrades are a set of TRF shocks and some little stuff like a good servo saver and maybe a R1Wurks end bell fan. May buy the aluminum front uprights cause I like sturdy. Also will start out with the dog bones cause the rears of my cars are usually pristine, but the fronts take a beating. I don't mind spending $$$, don't want to spend it just to spend it.

So far the bucks will be spent on a hi end servo, KO esc and a KO reciever. That way, if the car isn't to my liking this stuff will go into a different car.

Hey Bob, yup the stock build is definitely the way to go. The M-06 is remarkably good out of the box when compared to the M-05. The TRF shocks and aluminum knuckles are all I've done and the car is a gem.

I have found that the rear uprights get a bit sloppy at the lower suspension pin after a collision or two (or 10 in my case) and throw the toe for a loop.

HPRT's suggestion that the motor mount plate can help with cooling is very valid. He pits next to me and believe me, that thing got warm. Running outdoors on more open tracks like you do may have a huge difference on temps, however.

The only build tip I can offer is don't forget to follow the instructions at step 17! (shorten front upper control ball cups by 2mm)